Helga Zepp-LaRouche:
What Germany Needs Now!
In the event that on June 13, German Federal Chancellor Schröder fails to announce a substantial change in his economic policy, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, chairwoman of the Civil Rights Movement Solidarity (BüSo), intends to announce her own candidacy for the office of Chancellor of Germany. In the following statement, she explains why:
If Chancellor Schröder does not announce a really dramatic about-face in his policy on June 13, and does not launch an immediate state investment program of at least 200 billion euros for the creation of new productive jobs—and one cannot count on his doing so, now that he has declared that he wants to tie the parliamentary vote of confidence to his current "reform policy"—then the outlook is very bad for Germany. If Schröder adheres to Hartz IV and Agenda 2010—whatever his background reasons may be for doing so—this would be political suicide for the Social Democratic Party.
A [Christian Democratic] Angela Merkel government would be a total catastrophe for Germany, since she would, in all probability, support further impending aggressive wars by the Bush-Cheney Administration, just as she has already done in the case of the Iraq war. And the austerity policy of such a government, according to her own statements, would be even more brutal, and consequently even more incompetent. A new left alliance with Lafontaine and Gysi would indeed be against Hartz IV; but such an alliance has absolutely no concept of a solution to the systemic crisis of the world financial system, and would only contribute to Germany's further Weimarization. The Free Democratic Party is the most zealous advocate of the interests of predatory capitalism, and the Greens represent precisely the paradigm which is responsible for the present crisis.
What Should Be Done?
Any policy which does not address the central question—namely, that the global finance system is in its final throes—is irrelevant. And this fact has now become clear to a panicked Democratic Party in the U.S.A., and even to parts of the Republican Party. It is an open secret that behind the General Motors management's announcement of 25,000 layoffs, lies something far worse. Because if we add on all the jobs in the supplier industries, and in the surrounding economic area, a total of about 500,000 to 1 million jobs are at stake. That means the economic death of Michigan, Ohio, and the surrounding regions.
But massive resistance is now emerging against this perspective. Under the leadership of my husband, Lyndon LaRouche, the Democratic Party is remembering the tradition of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his policy of the New Deal and of the Bretton Woods system. Moreover, bipartisan collaboration with parts of the Republican Party is now emerging—as is reflected, for example, in the Detroit City Council's unanimous resolution on the GM crisis. This cooperation is also the reason why every one of the second G.W. Bush Administration's political initiatives has been an utter failure, as the Administration continues to exhibit the flying capacity of a lame duck.
If this trend of resistance to Bush's policy continues under crisis conditions which are assuredly now coming to a head, there is also new hope for the political situation in Germany—provided that a new coalition emerges, which supports the Roosevelt policy coming out of the U.S.A., and which implements it in a similar way for Germany. The unambiguous rejection of the EU Constitutional Treaty by voters in France and the Netherlands, was aimed not only against the idea of supranational bureaucracies, but also against the neo-liberal austerity policies being enforced in the interest of the banks. And therefore, what must be on the agenda instead, is a "New Deal" for Europe, i.e., a state investment program for well-defined infrastructure and high-technology projects, which can re-establish full employment.
We need a new system in Europe and world-wide, whereby the leading nations establish an alliance which must be based on two principles: 1) the idea that governments only have legitimacy, if they are committed to the General Welfare—a requirement which is already anchored in Article 20 of our Basic Law; and 2) a new world economic and financial order based on the principles of the Peace Treaty of Westphalia. On this basis, such a New Bretton Woods system of sovereign nation-states must be negotiated—an alliance which, acting as a community of principle and in partnership, will determine what the new system should look like. The old Bretton Woods System can, in the meantime, serve as the principled basis for beginning to undertake improvements in the interest of the developing nations.
If Chancellor Schröder fails to announce such a program on June 13, I shall declare my own candidacy for the office of Federal Chancellor, because it is not acceptable that there be no Chancellor candidate who defends the General Welfare and the Basic Law. As the politically aware in Germany know, in 1976 I ran in the Bundestag elections as the "Chancellor Candidate for a New and Just Economic Order." At that time, the remarks of Helmut Schmidt in the Bundestag about the policies of Hjalmar Schacht, had strengthened my view that the German population deserved an alternative to Helmut Kohl and Helmut Schmidt.
It is indeed the case, that in Germany there are a couple of hysterical people who swoon upon the mere mention of my name. But of these, excepting those who directly belong to the Mont Pelerin Society, they have, as a rule, never actually read anything which I or my husband have written. Well, they're just going to have to take some Valerian. Because once again, there's nothing crazy about my candidacy; rather, I represent a political tendency in the world, which will be successful in any case, if there is going to be an alternative to a New Dark Age: a New and Just World Economic Order, which guarantees the survival of all human beings on this planet.
To the astute observer of developments in the U.S.A., it is clear that in the grip of the existential crisis of the automobile sector, and also in the face of the banking crisis sparked by the hedge-fund crisis, the Roosevelt policy is beginning to gain acceptance. And soon, this will come to be understood in Germany as well.
